


Drinks

by ilse_writes



Series: Team spirit [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: And his sword is his badge, Attempt at Humor, But the armour is a police car, Discover what Nines his real name is, Established Relationship, Gavin is the knight in shining armour, Gavin to the rescue, Gay Best Friend, Going Out For Drinks, Hot Drinks, Human AU, Inspirational Quotes, Just a silly little thing, M/M, Men VS Women, Nines is feel uncomfortable, Nurse Nines, Rk900 is human, Soft Gavin Reed, Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Surrounded by women, Toilet roll holders, Working with women, prejudices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilse_writes/pseuds/ilse_writes
Summary: Nines is invited to go out for drinks with his coworkers. He is not sure he should go, though Gavin says it'll be a good thing. Nines ends up regretting it.





	Drinks

**Author's Note:**

> This silly little drabble turned into a 3.000 word short story. Who knew?! I hope Nines will forgive me for what I did....

Nines frowned at his phone. Beside him, Gavin looked up from his tablet.  "What's the matter? Did you lose at Dr. Mario?"

"No…" Nines elaborated when he saw the question mark in his lover's expression. "My colleagues have asked me out for…" He hesitated for a second. "Drinks."

"That's a good thing," Gavin said, flicking him across the nose. "No need to look so sour about it!"

"I don't know if I should do it." Nines looked over the message again. It was sent to him specifically, not just a shout out in the group app that had a notification bubble with double digits every day. He had not dared to put the thing on mute yet, not when he only worked there for three weeks, him being added to the group chat a few days after that. The chat was supposed to be used to conveniently trade shifts and to inform everyone of meetings and stuff; instead, it was more of a social thing, he discovered. Every little thing that couldn't be discussed when there were patients around or when things got too busy in the ER - like, all the time - got thrown in the group chat.   
Too late, he realised Gavin was talking to him. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

The man rolled his eyes, though he repeated his words good-naturedly. Or a summary of it, at least. “Going out for drinks with your co-workers is a great way to get to know them. Didn’t you say just last week that you felt like you hardly knew anybody?”

Nines sighed softly. He had indeed said that. After his initial training period in different wards of the hospital, even some weeks on the ambulance, he now finally had his desired spot on the ER team. It was one of the most frantic places in the hospital, which made it a little hard to get to know the people he worked with. Sure, he knew pretty soon which nurses had a way of handling drunkards, and he knew who to call when a little kid was brought in, but he knew nothing of their lives outside of the hospital. It was not that odd, if he thought about it, because he sometimes felt he hardly had a life outside the hospital himself. Like now, when he had to set his alarm and put his phone away, because he had to get up at an ungodly hour. 

Gavin took his reading glasses off and placed them on the bedside table. He reached out with his other hand, cupping the back of Nines’ neck, softly scratching the short hairs with his thumb. “Don’t overthink it, dummy. Just say you’ll go and go the fuck to sleep. You’ve got an early shift tomorrow, remember?”

A few minutes later Nines settled in next to his partner, who had his reading glasses back on and was scrolling through some news websites with one hand. The other hand was back in Nines’ neck, rubbing slow, absent minded circles.

The police detective would wake up the following morning to a post it note on his pillow, written in Nines’ narrow script. ‘I’ll be going out for drinks after work. See you tonight?’

***

When Nines got out at the bus stop, he looked around to check if he was on the right street. Despite living within the vicinity of Detroit for most of his life, he rarely visited the city. He had his own apartment now, to be closer to his job, yet he still had to get to know his way around downtown. Another downside of the hours that he put in: he didn’t have much free time, and what he had was spent with Gavin, if their hours off matched up anyway. Yesterday they had not even two hours together before Nines had to hit the sack. Today, if he wanted to see Gavin, he had to wait until the man crawled next to him in bed in the middle of the night.  _ If _ he did, maybe the detective would sleep at his own home, as that was closer to the precinct. 

The place he was looking for was just around the corner. His brisk walk stopped abruptly when he saw the lettering on the window. Curly letters in pastel colours, surrounded by chalk drawings in some cute Japanese comic style, if he was not mistaken. He stuffed his hands down his pockets and turned on his heels.

“Alistair! You came!” 

He swallowed a sigh and turned around, plastering a smile on his face. “Hi Molly! I wasn’t sure if this was the right place.”

“Of course it is!” She grabbed for his arm and pulled him with her, inside the cheerful interior of the café. “Come on, we were all waiting for you.”

Nines took a deep breath when he left the cold city air for the heat and sweet smell of the café. "And it's  _ Nines _ , Molly. Alistair was my grandfather."

His colleague all but cooed. "Oh, but I  _ love _ the name Alistair. It sounds so elite!"

"Exactly," Nines sighed in resignation. He let Molly peel him out of his coat and lead him to the large table in front of the shop window. A lot of the nurses from this morning's shift were there, along with some others who had the afternoon off. He was the only man in a group of fifteen women. 

"Kyle couldn't make it, he had to babysit little Ben," Sylvia said, patting the empty chair next to her for Nines to sit on. He was placed between the head nurse and Molly. 

"If you ask me, that's just an excuse!" another nurse added with a laugh. "He just hates this girly stuff!"

"Lucky for us, you don't mind, right, Alistair?" Molly was smiling so big he could not say no. 

"For crying out loud, woman, call him Nines!" Sylvia butted in. "You know how many times I had to call administration to get him a name tag that didn't have that stupid, archaic name on it?!"  
Four times, Nines knew. And until then she had gracefully let him walk around with a sticker from the label writer to cover his grandfather's name on the metal tag with his chosen designation. 

A waitress approached their table with an inflated smile. “I see you’re all here. Let’s get this party started, shall we?”  
She disappeared for a moment, to return with two large teapots. They were of the grandmother’s type, the kind you find at a flea market. They were as mismatched as the tea cups and saucers on the table, which had the effect that everything matched anyway. Another waitress followed the first one, carrying stacking trays that were filled with finger sandwiches and little pastries. Another two teapots were put on the table and for quite a while conversations were reduced to exclamations of ‘oh, this tastes so good’ and ‘can you pass me the tea leaves’. 

This was one of those times that being over six foot was a disadvantage. He slouched a little in his chair, yet still he could feel the eyes on his back. He had not dared to look around openly, but he was fairly sure there were only three males in the whole establishment. One was an elderly gentleman who came with his wife and the other was a young father, who patiently fed a toddler girl little bites of brownie. The mother looked on with a loving smile on her face, enjoying her own cake. The rest of the place was filled with women of all ages, most of them friends or maybe sisters. And he had the feeling they all stared at him over the rim of their cup of tea or fancy coffee. 

Now, Nines liked a well brewed cup of tea, so he didn’t mind drinking tea with his co-workers this afternoon. At home he helped himself with tea bags mostly, not the loose leaves that they served here. He spooned some chopped up leaves in a disposable tea bag and put it in his cup. The dainty china cup looked ridiculous in his large hand; his finger didn’t even fit through the sculpted, gilded ear. He sure felt a out of place in the pastel coloured café, with its mismatched crockery and girly knick knacks in every corner. Above their table hung a brightly coloured, fake chandelier and the closest wall was covered in letter boards with witty quotes and embroidered proverbs with a twist. ‘Girls just want to have fun _ damental rights _ ’, read an embroidery in a pink frame. It was next to a letter board that said that tea was ‘like a hug in a cup’. 

The empty trays were taken away and replaced with trays filled with sweet baked goods. Miniature slices of carrot cake, brownie dices, petite muffins, and so on. Again, the conversations were put on hold to exclaim  _ oohh _ ’s and  _ aahh _ ’s about how good it all was. Table talk soon returned to the previous subjects though, with the women talking about their significant others. It was hard to distinguish whether they were praising the other or complaining sometimes, though the scale tipped through to the complaints most of the time. The male partners of his co-workers either left the toilet seat up, didn’t clean up after the kids or sent the kids to school in mismatched outfits. Nines let it all wash over him, nodding every now and then, mostly keeping out of it.

“Really, Nines,” one of the women said. “I don’t understand why you’re gay! Men can be such slobs!” 

“Are you kidding me?  _ Of course _ he is gay! Straight men wait outside the store for you, a gay man helps you pick your outfit!” A chorus of laughter rang across the table.

Nines bought his clothes online, he hated shopping malls. 

Molly nudged his arm. “By the way,  _ are _ you dating someone?” She looked at him expectantly and the other women around him were just as curious. 

He swallowed his bite of carrot cake and wiped the corners of his mouth with the floral napkin, belatedly realising that looked exceptionally gay.  _ Shit _ .   
“I am,” he said to a collection of smiling faces. 

“Ohh! Do tell!” Molly bounced in her seat. “What’s his name? Is he handsome? What does he do?”

With all this attention on him Nines was suddenly reluctant to talk about his private life. He wanted to get to know his colleagues better and part of that was offering up some information about his own life too, he knew that. But this was something else. He felt put on display like a Ken doll; a template they could put their own image of a gay man on. 

“Come on, don’t be shy! Who is your Prince Charming?” one of the women encouraged. Nines almost snorted at the idea of calling Gavin Prince Charming. Yes, he could be charming if he wanted, but only in his own, special way. A way that could easily be mistaken for acting like an asshole. 

“His name is Gavin, he works with the DPD.” 

“Oh, I love a man in uniform!” Molly cheered, waving her hands about. Little did she know that Gavin’s ‘uniform’ was a ten year old leather jacket and a worn in hoodie on most days. Nines had seen the garment bag in his closet that held Gavin’s dress uniform, for when he needed to show up in full regalia for an event. He still hadn’t convinced the man to show it to him, though Nines knew he must look great in it.

Meanwhile, Molly chattered on. “He’s a police officer, you’re a nurse. Does that mean you’re the girl in the relationship?”

“Don’t be daft,” Sylvia butted in from his other side. “They’re gay, they’re both men.”  
Again, Nines was grateful for the head nurse and her blunt commentary. She was talking to Grace, the nurse on her other side, though apparently she also kept an ear open to the other conversations at the table. She almost had to, with someone like Molly around. Nines admired how good she was with kids and she was funny and cheerful at work, yet she also had no filter between her mouth and her brain.

“Oh, then what’s it called again? Tops and downs, or something?” 

“Bottoms,” one of the women from across the table supplied helpfully. 

“Right! Bottom!” Molly pointed her brownie at her co-worker. “Are you a bottom, Nines?”

Nines had had it with her. “Are you really asking me whether I take it up the ass?” he said coolly, his voice loud enough to carry to other tables.   
In the silence that followed only the sounds of hands pushing forks and plates around nervously could be heard. Someone coughed. Molly stared at him, wide-eyed and with a rapidly forming blush. 

Until someone started to laugh and within seconds everyone laughed. “Oh my god, Molly! You can’t ask someone that!”

The awkward situation was soon over, though Nines kept a sour taste in his mouth over it. He was used to working with women. There weren’t that many around him when he worked as an outdoor instructor, yet in nursing school the men were a minority. The ER had the most male nurses of all the wards in the hospital, although they were still highly outnumbered by the women. That was fine and he had no problem to do the things they needed a man for. After all, there were some tasks that a woman was better qualified for too. However, he did get tired of the label of ‘gay best friend’ that most women tended to slap on him. Somehow, women became instant friends with you as soon as they knew you’re gay. Not all of his coworkers were the same, yet they still treated him as one of the girls. 

He shouldn’t have agreed to come today.

Nines excused himself from the table and found his way to the restrooms in the back of the café. He didn’t think it possible, but the restrooms were even more over the top than the rest of the place. There were no separate bathrooms for men and women, just one room with three doors and two sinks. Above the sink was a large mirror, almost completely covered in post-its. ‘Leave a compliment’ said a sign on the wall, and beside the sinks there was a stack of brightly coloured post-it notes and a coffee mug filled with pens. 

He quickly opened one of the doors, only to pause and stare at its interior. He sighed and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Sitting on the toilet, he fished his phone from his pocket and snapped a photo of his surroundings. Dozens of toilet roll holders covered the walls, in all shapes and sizes. Old-fashioned ones with flowers on the lid covering the roll, crocheted or knitted ones, one in the shape of two hands with the index fingers pointed towards each other, one in the shape of a teddy bear, and so on. Nines felt like he was in the little shop of horrors.

He sent the picture to Gavin, accompanied with a pin to his location and the text ‘save me’. 

***

The scones and clotted cream were just put on the table, along with fresh pots of tea water, when blue lights flashed in front of the shop window. The police cruiser parked with two wheels on the sidewalk, keeping the lights on while the officer stepped out. Or better yet, not an officer, a detective. 

Nines saw Gavin look over the front of the café, his amused scoff visible from miles away. Then the bell above the door tingled and Gavin stepped inside. He looked around for a moment, his eyes zeroing in on Nines when he found him among the large group of women. The detective looked good, with his leather jacket zipped halfway up, the lower part of his badge peeping out from under the hem of his jacket. There was also a bulge on his hip: his gun, knew Nines. 

All eyes on the table turned to him when they saw the police detective coming straight towards Nines. “Is that him?” Molly whispered excitedly.

“I hope he’s not here to arrest you,” Sylvia added dryly. A joke, of course, as she gave him a small, appreciative smile. 

“Ladies,” Gavin greeted with a nod of his head. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take Nines away from you.”

A chorus of disappointed ahh’s followed. “Do you really?”

“Why does he have to go? He’ll miss the scones,” Molly said with a fake pout.

“Can’t say, madam. Official police business.” Gavin kept his poker face well. Inside, he must be laughing his ass off; he was almost bursting at the seams with it.

Nines grabbed his coat and said his goodbyes, quickly following his boyfriend outside. Gavin opened the back door of the police cruiser for him and Nines pushed it shut, pushing Gavin’s shoulder. 

It was not until they both sat in the front of the car, that Gavin burst out laughing. It was a full body laugh, his shoulders shaking with it. He could barely keep his eyes on the road.  
“Oh my god,” he hiccuped, “I thought you said you were going out for drinks!” 

“Tea is a drink too,” Nines huffed in offense. He was relieved to leave the high tea and the overload of women behind him, though he was a bit miffed about having to be saved like a damsel in distress.   
“I shouldn’t have texted you.” 

Gavin quieted down a bit. “Of course you should’ve! A fucking high tea!” He laughed again. “You’re gay, babe, but not  _ that _ gay.”

“I’ve certainly had enough of women for today.” That earned another laugh from Gavin

The detective drove them to Nines’ place, parking in front of the building. He leaned over the console to kiss Nines, his hand slipping around his neck. When he pulled back, he smirked. “I’ll see you tonight, babe. I’ll fart in bed an grope you, remind you of how it is to be with a guy.”


End file.
